Just before the Storm
by equine02
Summary: While recovering from a bad injury, Saunders and his squad are sent on an assignment in Italy. Doubts about his value as a soldier begin to set in for Saunders as Thanksgiving approaches.
1. Italy

(Takes place after the tv series ends)

Saunders leaned his head back as the freezing late November air whipped through his hair. He glanced at Hanley. The man was almost asleep, with his frozen hands clasped tightly on his lap. The vehicle jolted to a stop, and several guys came crowding in, slapping Saunders' back and shouting in perfect chaos. He slid out of the jeep with a letter crumpled in his hands. The guys all eventually left the excitement of their Sergeant coming back for the more exciting prospect of family mail.

Hanley, standing up in the jeep, took a glance around the camp. A big hospital tent had been set up near some sad looking pines, and behind that rose a great field, and if he hoped very hard, he could see the Italian alps soaring against the white-grey sky.

After getting checked out and given the all clear with the usual warnings to "take it easy, Sir," and "no stunts Sarge," Saunders sat down against a crumbled well and carefully reopened the letter. His eyes found the words no different than the first time he'd read them. Mail wasn't easy to get now; this letter was from the first Thanksgiving he'd spent overseas, almost two years ago. There was still no end to the killing in the foreseeable future.

"Hey Sarge! Back from the dead!" he felt Caje's wiry hand on his shoulder, and for once, a grin covered Saunders' face.

"What're you doin' here? I thought you were back in a ditch in France!"

Littlejohn laughed, "You didn't hear?"

"Hear what?"

Caje's grin widened, "You're stuck with us, Sir!"

How about that? Saunders' mused in to himself. Can't shake 'em.

"I didn't hear anything." He took the cigarette out of his mouth slowly, squinting. "Who says?"

"General Ivory. Some bigwig in the states." Kirby appeared from nowhere, sporting the beginnings of a beard.

"Hey, Kirby! Look at you." Saunders got slowly to his feet, "Better burn that thing before Hanley does."

Kirby hit him squarely on the back, sending a shudder of pain through Saunders' ribcage. He fought doubling over with a tight grin.

"Doctors treat you good?"

"You mean nurses, Kirby?" Saunders's brushed off his pants.

Caje threw his head back with laughter.

"So," Littlejohn asked, "what were you doing in a mail truck Serge?"

Saunders' went on to explain that after his release from the hospital, the truck he was in got hit pretty bad, and they got split up. He caught an ambulance halfway to this camp, and when that broke down, he jumped in a mail truck, and they picked up Hanley on the roadside.

They squad's banter continued as they made their way to get some grub, and although it was dry and probably months old, it was the best he'd ever eaten.

The sergeant smiled. A thousand miles from where he should be- home- but right where he wanted to be.

…..

The next morning saw Saunders and the guys marching, or dragging their feet in a somewhat orderly pattern, down a crusty road through the Italian countryside. Three new recruits took the places of Billy, Brockmeyer, and the sometimes-present Hanley, who currently was already on his way back to France. All privates, and fresh off the train from the States, their eyes were wide and noses red under actively rubbing hands and frosty breaths. The sky didn't weep ice, but it seemed to cough frozen air over the squad and the whole land. The slush on the dirt road had frozen into frosty brown waves that cracked under stomping combat boots, with no other sound heard. Then hell hit.

The earth tumbled and all eight men fell into the ditch beside the road. Rifles came out and heads ducked down. Saunders' ice-blue eyes clenched shut against the showering dirt, and he glance down the road behind them. Ambulances. Almost twenty of them staggered along the road were pulling off and crashing, and above them, planes were dropping bombs right on their heads.

Saunders motioned for the guys to follow and they moved in sprints through the stone-sized clods of dirt showering around them. Saunders' let Caje take the first, and they moved further and further back, pulling dead drivers out of the driver's seats and occasionally sending bursts of gunfire to the sky. Caje floored it down the hill, with the rest of the squad following in the remaining mobile ambulances. Saunders approached the last on his belly, firing through the smoke and praying a thousand incoherent prayers. Part of the engine burst into flames, and he cursed, rolling to the side as ash and dirt sprayed in his eyes from another nearby hit. From under the ambulance he could see another mostly intact, and he went for it.

His swerving added to the growing vertigo he was experiencing, but Saunders' stomped on the gas petal as hard as he could. He didn't remember stopping until he was on the ground again, barely able to stand.


	2. Close Calls

Hey guys! So sorry it's been so long! I felt like posting something for Thanksgiving and this was on my mind! I've missed writing, so I hope you all enjoy!

...

They had stopped near a ruin of an old house, far, far from the planes and the bombings. Seven ambulances were saved, with a wounded recruit- his name was Scott Clyde- unable to drive, in Littlejohn's vehicle.

Clyde was bleeding pretty badly, but by the time the men were checking out their passengers, he was comfortably stable, with a jacket to hopefully delay shock. In all, there were still fourteen living, three of which were medics, and thankfully unwounded. But there were also four dead.

Saunders, lightheaded, sat down on in the back of one of the ambulances, and pulled up his shirt. He probed the skin around the large, blade-shaped scar on his lower abdomen and back. The skin was tender, and slightly purple. A medic caught his eye, but didn't stop in his administering to a man with a bad head wound.

Saunders set his helmet back on his head and shouldered his Thomson.

"Ok, listen up. Those planes can't be far off from here. Now if we-"

He was stopped by the rattling of a fast approaching ambulance. It jolted to a stop, and out jumped a young medic, probably no older than twenty-five. He marched up to Saunders' and swung a punch which clipped his jaw. Saunders' stumbled back, but managed to keep his footing while Littlejohn and Kirby restrained the man. The Sergeant now saw the blood streaming down the man's cheek and over his mouth.

"Damn you!" he yelled. "You left us!"

"What was I supposed to do- I can't save everyone!" he pointed to the line of dead men in the shadow of a crumbling wall. "Now there wasn't any time," Saunders' voice became dangerously low, "and there still isn't. Snap out of it, and let's get your men taken care of."

"My men?" the man clenched his jaw and shook his head. He yanked his arms away from the soldiers holding him. "My men?! Well don't look here, they're shot to pieces, big shot."

"I can't change that. This is war. And you'd better cool it, or you not going to make it through, you hear? People die. And we're gonna die too if you don't get over it and get moving. Go. Get moving!"

They worked in silence for a long time after.

…

The only way for this to work was for Saunders to think very hard about what mattered more. His squad was sent to scout out a place to set up a base camp. They couldn't clear the Krauts from the area if they were lugging around fourteen dying men in seven ambulances, plus Clyde, who was holding on by a shoelace, and barely that. Saunders figured that if they could fit all the wounded into five or less, and have the medics drive to the nearest hospital base, he'd only be down two. That way he could send one of the recruits with Littlejohn, and take Kirby, Caje, and the other recruits, they would make it in plenty of time.

….

"I can't believe…. Stupid kids." Kirby closed the eyes of the recruit, whose name he didn't remember, but wouldn't bring himself to look for. The rest of them were lined up, already dead.

Miles onward, looking back, Saunders kept telling himself he cared. But somehow their deaths were like everybody else's. They were numbers on a slate, marks in a book. Only one shot at life and they missed.

And he felt like he was missing too. Sitting down for a moment by the side of the road, his chest ached worse than it had at any other point in his recovery. He drew in a long breath through his teeth and raised his cigarette to his lips. The smoke took away the cold view of an Italian autumn. War hadn't changed the sloping greys and blues of the far of hills and the powdery white sky that was heavily pregnant with snow. Using his Tommy for support he lifted himself out of the mud and slowly limped over to Caje, who was checking their coordinates.

"Looks okay?"

"We're on track. About another hour if we start now. The sun's setting," the Frenchman replied. Through the clouds a dim sun could be seen set nearly on top of the horizon.

"Camp?" Kirby asked.

"Yeah. Looks like a good place up there. I think there's some woods coming up."

As good as it felt to be off the open road, the woods made the world darker and colder. Saunders' shivering made his months-old would hurt madly. He clutched his side under the guise of holding his Tommy gun in place. By the time they stopped he was nearly doubled over. Kirby caught the signs and helped split up the K-rations and decided to take first watch.

Caje handed Saunders his coat, at which the Sergeant quietly draped it over himself with a nod of thanks, even though his pride didn't want it. Caje was thin, and could probably use it more than him. Saunders promised himself to return the article when he got up for watch.

…..

Saunders blinked at the light. It was already daylight, and he was still laying in the same place. He'd never taken his watch, and now Kirby was up, quietly eating and talking to Caje, who was wrapped in his bedroll. He laid back down a listened.

"Hey, don't give the Sarge a hard time." Caje said, "the guy was limping pretty badly yesterday, and I think he's still hurting."

"Aww, Caje, don't go all soft on me. Sarge is bigger 'n tougher than all of us, you know that. We gotta keep going. Orders."

"I don't know if we can make it."

Saunders appeared behind them. "We have'ta make it. Hanley isn't here to whip you guys into action, and I'm not playing your brother anymore. We're going, and we're going now, before one of us gets it in our heads to die or something like that. Saddle up, we're leaving at oh-seven hundred."

…..

They found the Italian town empty of life but full of corpses. A woman lay on the street, face down, probably Saunders' age, with a long white ribbon in her hand. Her dress was pale yellow, and it looked like a summer dress. Over it she wore a man's coat with a large X slashed in the back, and dried blood, having once poured out where now the edges were curled and brown.

Kirby stared in shock while Caje leaned down and picked up the white ribbon slowly.

"They were trying to surrender, it looks like."

"Bloods' still wet," Saunders muttered, "c'mon, let's go look inside." They followed her footprints back to a small house sandwiched between what was a restaurant and a warehouse.

Inside a young man and an old woman were huddled together against a door, dead, and a dog, also deceased, lay on its side nearby.

A fire was dying in the hearth, and coffee spilt over the green carpet. Broken windows cloaked with shivering curtains made the room as freezing as the outside. Saunders brushed his hand against his face, and felt a drop of rain fall onto his hand from the storm in his heart.


	3. Something Wicked this way Comes

3

Kirby leaned against the doorframe with his eyes closed. It had been a long time since he'd seen a woman, and a longer time since he'd seen a dead one. He remembered Chicago. He remembered the teenage girl who'd been hit by a car outside his family's flat almost twenty years ago. And he saw her now, soft hair that would no longer grow, the pale dress stained with blood. Even with his eyes closed he couldn't stop thinking about it. Behind him, Caje and the Sergeant were radioing HQ.

"Sarge, we goin' now?"

"No, Kirby. Orders are to stay here until they start moving in."

"What?! How can they do that? We can't stay here- what if the Krauts come back?" Kirby swung back into the room.

"That's the problem. Until our guys get here there's not guarantee they won't. And we drove nearly ten miles in those ambulances." Saunders grimaced, "Snows' comin', Kirby."

…..

(All between * is writing)

*The last drops of rain fell on that late September day at around noon. Soaking wet, and coughing large amounts of blood, I fell against the ground time and again. I knew I was leaving a blood trail. I was alone, bleeding, and so cold. It wasn't even the temperature outside, but the shock that left me huddled every ten feet. I couldn't touch the wound without recoiling, but I was losing so much of my life force that I weakened too quickly to continue.

At about this time I found myself near the edge of a road. Time and words and things I didn't understand warped violently. My brain didn't comprehend the passing of a small dog or the flight of birds overhead, which somehow now I remember. The gravel was wet under my fists. It made my stomach churn to think of the miles I might have to go to find help. I had dodged bullets… how could I have caught a bayonet?

Sometime later I woke to hands. Hands that hurt me and turned me and helped me through the waves of crashing pain I could not have otherwise survived. Somehow, I rasped out three words.

"Lost my gun." *

Saunders set the pen down and leaned his head back. What if he hadn't come? What if he was married? He was nearly thirty. By now, most fellas had at least a girl to come home to. He had his sister, and his brothers- well, some- and his mother. And maybe, but not for certain, his Coon Hound Maxie. But despite all that, Saunders didn't have much of a life to come back to. He'd left for Europe and the war just as his life was beginning. Why, the only real job he'd ever had was shining shoes at a train station once when he was nineteen. It seemed more than a mere decade ago. He had his writing; he was always better with made up stories than people. People were difficult to understand and to talk to. They always wanted something, and in turn, that "something" would make them very unhappy indeed, without them ever really knowing it. But in writing one gave so much and gained only a wealth of friends who would never be embraced and voices never heard to the world that needed them most.

"Sarge?" Caje knelt down beside the bedraggled Sergeant, and the leather book in Saunders' hands slowly closed. "What happened?" His voice was soft and low, and smelled like years of Cognac and smoke.

Saunders turned his head against the wall. "I dodged a bullet, and hit another."

"What do you mean?"

"I was a fool Caje, that's what I mean. I hated Sharpe."

"Sharpe?"

"My new Lieutenant. That man was faster and taller and better than all of us, but he couldn't lead a squad to save his life. He gave an order…." Saunders' trailed off, a hand playing gently with the straps on his combat boots. "Well. I like my guys. I liked my squad. I might have even liked Sharpe, but then we… we came to this little town. This tiny little thing, no one knew, no one cared. Everyone was gone. Scared I guess. But there was one old woman in her house. Refused to leave." He laughed at the irony, "A whole war. People dyin' every day, and…. here was this little old lady who didn't speak a scrap of English… just sittin' there. I didn't want to leave her. Sharpe said we couldn't take her, it'd slow us down. So, I went AWOL."

Caje hid his amused grin under his collar.

"Eh, laugh if you want. I wanted to save this old lady, because we couldn't let her die- I couldn't. But it was too late. Krauts come through. I couldn't find her anywhere. I looked and looked. But… nothing." He sighed. "Well. I was coming back through the woods. I might have made it okay, but I was caught, and the Kraut stabbed me with his bayonet."

Caje's eyes caught the light through the window. A memory of himself writhing in agony under Doc's shaking hands after he caught a bayonet was still fresh.

"I figured I'd be court marshaled, you know. I… I couldn't eat or sleep, not without morphine. I didn't even sit up until about three weeks after. But, uh, no one ever arrested me. It was never brought up, and I was too scared to ask. But when I met up with Hanley he looked at me and said the strangest thing." Saunders' eyes grew still, "He said, 'I'm sorry that happened to you, Chip.' I asked him what he meant, and he said, 'Didn't you remember? You were the only one they found.'" Saunders glanced up at Caje, "And I don't feel a thing about it."

Caje was not used to Saunders openness- it was shocking to hear the man say anything more than, 'get going,' or, 'Well, deal with it'. He couldn't imagine Saunders being like this all the time.

"Sarge?"

Saunders was lifting up his shirt, and Caje's jaw tightened. An angry red gash surrounded by purplish red skin glared back at him. The man was burning up. Saunders blinked, and leaned into the darkness.


	4. The Unbreakable Kirby

**Sorry guys, this is totally unedited! Shout out to Sandi! Thanks for reviewing, and I'm so glad you liked it! Wow, this story is seriously so much fun to write. Enjoy the next chapter. And you people who have known me for a long time…. You know what's coming…..**

 **DISCLAIMER: mmmm-mmmmm. Nope. Not true. I do not know who is putting this convoluted idea in your head that I somehow own this little patch of H/C heaven, but they are so right- uh, I mean wrong. SO wrong. Yeah. So there.**

"No, Kirby, I gotta-"

"Stay down Sarge, jus' sit tight."

Saunders' eyes went half-lidded as he breathed raspily. Coughing into his hand, he wiped his mouth. Away came blood. He laid back against the wall, Tommy spread across his lap.

Caje crawled over and whispered something in Kirby's ear.

"If we don't get 'im out of here it's gonna be bad," the Irishman's forehead crinkled. Caje glanced over his shoulder quickly to check the Sergeant and then looked back out the window.

"I don't know who they are, but they have a Kraut flag on them. Looks like civilians. But there are so many. I don't know what to do."

"Sympathizers?"

"Maybe."

"Looks to me like one of them bands of people trying to spread Hitler's war. Sarge told me about them one time. They don't put that stuff in the newspapers." Kirby squinted. The barrel of his gun rested on the windowsill.

"Hey you know, maybe you are good for something," the soft french accent seemed to smile tightly. He clapped Kirby on the shoulder and crawled back to Saunders. He picked up the radio and quickly relayed the information to HQ via lines laid during a mission about a year ago. Thankfully. When he was done he gently shook the Sergeant's shoulder.

"Hey Sarge, hey! How is it?"

"How's'waht?" he mumbled back. His hand found Caje's knee. He opened his eyes. There was an age and exhaustion studded deeply in the painful blue. "Caje, are they here?"

"Not yet, Sargent, but soon." Caje watched the hand flop limply in search for his gun. "Kirby's got your gun Saunders. He took it when you were sleeping."

"Sleeping?"

"Yes, now stay low. We have to be quiet, we might have visitors."

Once the sergeant's ever-fighting eyes closed, Caje checked his wound. It hadn't reopened; it had scarred over long ago. But beneath the skin a strange stiffness and terrifying dark color was spreading under his skin. Caje closed his eyes slowly.

He was jolted out of his worry with a gunshot.

"Kirby!"

"Wasn't me!" the short man cursed violently, "lookie there, someone went and clipped my window." Shouts in a German and Italian mixed rang through the streets after their celebratory gunshot.

Caje slid in and angled his gun down at the group. He whispered, "Looks like the sarge is bleeding inside."

Kirby's face went grey. "Oh. Ain't good." He looked back for the millionth time. "You radioed Hanley- uh, I mean HQ?"

"Yeah, but it's not going to help. Not yet. We have to be careful what we do."

"What WE do?" Kirby spluttered, "that son of a… almost took my head off!"

"Shut up Kirby, you'll bring in the whole SS with that stupid mouth. All I'm saying is that we can't kill them. That's for the army to decide, not us. We can't kill citizens, even if they walk around with a Kraut flag on them. That's murder."

"And what they do isn't? They're supporting the guys who killed that woman in the street, and that old lady and her son. The army better make their little decision fast, because sarge is bleeding out with no way to stop it, and it's getting cold."

As he spoke, snow began to tumble from the sky. The sun was settling down once more, and the air must have been cold enough to freeze tears as they fell.

"Just wait Kirby."

So they did. Through the bullets pumping through windows and through the awful sound of the men and women dragging the murdered woman off the road to strip her French Resistance patch off her coat with a bayonet. They flushed out all of the houses it seemed, even though the town was obviously quite dead.

But they weren't careful enough. They showered bullets upwards at the windows, shattering glass and splintering wood. Kirby, Caje, and Saunders were flat on the ground.

Then they were gone. Just like that.

While Caje knelt next to Saunders, folding a bullet dotted curtain for a pillow under his head, and checking the unfixable wound, Kirby radioed the update to HQ, who reported their troops several miles out and confirmed the arrival of the remaining men in the squad and their ambulances.

The air became thin and bitter, whipping open windows into tunnels of frigid air. They moved Saunders into a back room filled with old books and a fireplace… which was also filled with old books. Half burnt, Kirby picked one up and tried to make out the title. " _L'età d'oro dei Nostri Padri,"_ it said.

"Wonder if Caje speaks any Italian…." he wondered to himself.

"Not that we know of." Said a quiet voice behind him.

"Hey Sarge," he put a hand on the man's shoulder. "How's it going?"

"Feelin' it…. a little, Kirby." His legs moved restlessly, and he sighed between cold blue lips. "Not too bad."

"Let me get the fire goin' for you."

A feeble hand touched his sleeve. "The smoke."

Saunders had a point. If there were Krauts nearby- and chances were good on that idea- then smoke from this place was like wearing a target. But Saunders was freezing. There had to be a way.

Reluctantly, he gathered up some of the books already half burnt and stacked them in the middle of the floor. He took down from one of the shelves a large metal platter (one of four) with a faint inscription in the middle. Setting it on the floor to keep the fire from buring through the thin boards and literally falling through, he proceeded to pile the books on, and draw out a match. Before he laid it against the first pages, he gave a weak half-grin. "I never was much for reading."

As the texts burnt, giving off the hideous smell of glue and leather singeing, Kirby opened the door and started waving the smoke out. Small amounts of smoke wasn't bad. Coming from a chimney could however mean trouble.

…...

Night had long ago fallen by the time the snow was thickly layered against the houses and streets. Kirby changed posts with Caje, who came back to a warm, smokey room. Kirby had been so proud of his invention that Caje barely even minded the thick smog. He whooshed some out and sat down to light his cigarette and check Saunders. He thought it was probably a sin to burn good books. Especially the one on the floor by the fireplace, which seemed to have been flipped through and discarded by Kirby. "The Golden Age of our Fathers," it read.

Caje moved towards Saunders' inert body to check his pulse. Weak, but steady. The man's fever was down a bit, although that wasn't a sure sign it wouldn't go up some time in the night.

The Cajun closed his eyes for a moment, and then everything went dim.

….

"Hey fellas! Hey get a medic up here, we got a Sergeant, pretty out of it. Oh, and a lazy Frenchman."

Caje thought he heard Kirby yelling through a wall. He cracked his eyes open to see sunlight. Slowly, he got up and, glancing to check the rise and fall of Saunders' chest, peeked into the next room. There sat Kirby on a drift of snow, leaning out the broken window as a bunch of their guys came marching in. Frozen stiff and grinning madly, the Irishman shook his beard of the ice crystals it had collected over the night, and turned to Caje.

"Happy Thanksgiving buddy!"

Caje's eyebrows went up, "What?"

"You slept clear through to Turkey day." Kirby handed Caje the gun playfully as he stumbled past. "I call dibs on the alcohol. 'Night."

Caje would have laughed or cried if he'd remembered which he was supposed to. For all the court marshals Kirby had seen, he got the idea that there might be a metal some day, perhaps very soon.


	5. Medal for the failure

**Hey guys, sorry for the long wait. This is probably not the last chapter, but I was having a pretty downer of a day, and I really just needed to turn to these guys to get me back up there. And it always works, you know. Sorry if it gets depressing later on but- TRIGGER WARNING: there is a death, but don't panic, (SPOILER) it's not Saunders. He's immortal, as we all know. Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and be sure to let me know if you have any ideas for where this story is going because some of you might catch the hint for the next chapter towards the end, but I could still use ideas.**

 **Disclaimer: Are we still doing this thing?**

The ambulance rumbled through the snow shakily. Saunders gripped the side of the stretcher and watched the medic helplessly wringing his hands.

He couldn't think very clearly, but it seemed that they had been moving like this for a long time. His bandages had been changed, but were old enough that they were no longer stiff and perfectly white. His left hand gripped the stretcher to ride out the hot ache in his side, and his right clutched the arm and shoulder of Caje, who sat faithfully there beside him. Kirby snored quiety in a heap on the floor of the ambulance as it rattled through mud and slush that tried to eat and swallow whole the wimpy tires.

When they reached the aid station, Kirby was woken up by an impatient nurse who tried her best to ignore his risen eyebrows and groggy grin.

"C'mon, out you go." She threw a thumb in the direction of the barracks. "Go get some sleep."

"And who might you be? Princess Elizabeth, I bet," he tried to lean over and kiss her, but she smoothly avoided his advances with a sly, "Well you may have guessed right." The blonde laughed. "Go get some sleep, soldier, before you get a kiss from a general somewhere."

Kirby stumbled away, mumbling.

As Saunders was unloaded, he clenched his eyes for when the agony was sure to hit him. The Nurse gently pried his other hand off the stretcher and set up an IV as they walked.

Saunders gazed blearily at her.

"I'm Nurse Millner, but you can call me Lucy, Sergeant. You're at a base camp in Trois Amore."

He muttered something, and she had to lean in to hear it. She straightened, smiling to herself as Saunders slipped out again. "No, not Elizabeth Sergeant. Just Lucy."

…

The Sergeant suffered from a high fever as it came close to its breaking point, but with antibiotics, cold water, and sleep, by nighttime two days later his fever broke. He was given a new undershirt and pants to replace the soaked undergarments of his uniform- a navy green tank top, which had been cut off when he was taken in, and boxers. After an orderly with a thick Brooklyn accent helped him sit up and put on the new clothes, Saunders slipped into a coma-like sleep. He was awoken after two or three hours and given water, and an assessment by a doctor. His stitches, though stretched, had not busted with the movement from his exhausting ordeal. However, the purple hadn't gone away; beneath the skin was rigid, and the fever was back again. Bleeding inside. The first surgery he'd undergone while in the US several months ago hadn't cut it.

Saunders remembered that he'd always felt the pressure under his skin since being released what felt like years ago, before Italy, the consistent and tight ache. But he'd imagine it to be the skin mending itself and the blood moving under wrecked skin, trying to become what it was before the metal hit it. But that bayonet must have nicked an artery and left it to bleed under the patches of bandaging and the stitches. And he was as he had been before- Chip Saunders, Sergeant in the US army. But now he was also his injury. He was the one who we bleeding out with no visible red, and it terrified him.

So after almost a month among the dead and dying, Chip was given the one thing he'd dreaded more than death: another ticket stateside. He could only pray it wasn't one way.

…

In an army hospital one morning in January (the 20th, to be exact) of 1945, Chip Saunders smoked three cigarettes in two hours, just because he could.

New York was a wonder. After waking up he saw about three inches of it and then, bang, into the hospital he was wheeled. But the people weren't bad, and the accents were entertaining. Not all of them had the thick swaying lilt, but those who did laughed back at him for his own accent.

It had been a week since coming back to the US of A, and so far his side had continued its paralyzing throbbing as his situation was assessed. It had been too dangerous to operate for a second time when; he had been nearly in a coma for the first three days, slipping in and out of consciousness, but deeply out of it in between. However, the bleeding wouldn't stop, and so another operation was scheduled.

He thought about Caje and Kirby, and what they'd told him had happened. He thought about his guilt. He'd left people behind. He thought about going under and never waking up. His family, who were on their way- except for his brother overseas and Joey. He would either meet his mother when he woke, or his brother if he didn't. Neither excited him enough to make any more small talk with the medical staff than, "huh."

On January 20th, 1945, the day finally had come, three cigarettes and a whole lot of ether later, he couldn't even remember sleeping. He only barely remembered lying blearily on a white board of a bed while a thin man in black, stuffed with metals, stood over him.

"...So… that's…...heard about your ambulance stunt…..Expect a purple heart, and then some, son. We've…."

The rest was lost, and he didn't think much of the bleary memory until the day several months later when those predicted metals found their way onto his chest, at which point he wanted nothing to do with war of it's rewards.

"Hey, how do you feel, Sergeant?" His kid brother joked as he slapped him on the back on the ride back home. The idiot was in his dress uniform, about ready to ship out.

Saunders stared at him heavily. "Don't ever take a metal for failure, even if you won halfway. War ain't gonna make killin' and wishin' right with metals." He pressed the hateful thing into his brother's hand. But the purple heart he kept pinned on his jacket. It was the last, he knew now, of five. War was almost over. He was a veteran, he was wounded. They didn't need him to die for them anymore. Six stupid metals to remind him of a time he had to leave behind, of people he had protected and saved, and failed and left. Six to remind him of his mother, his sister, Chris, his older brother, his long-dead father, and of Joey.

…..

On September 2, 1945, the war ended. For the guys in his squad, the war of fitting back into a broken world had just begun. For Saunders, well, that war was still being fought.

Christmas Eve found him drinking a shot of whiskey in front of a sparse Christmas tree. Chris wasn't home; he'd stayed in the army after the war ended after his promotion to Lieutenant. Meanwhile their Mother lay upstairs with her weak heart thudding gently in a virtually silent timebomb-like way. Any minute she'd go, leaving devastation behind her. Louise sat with her, so Chip was alone downstairs, and the doctor, too, had left, patting the young man on the back and smiling tightly.

"Merry Christmas, Charlie," he'd sighed, "Hang in there."

Chip went to reach for a front pocket, but his hand just slid down the front of his argyle sweater. Right. Cigarettes in his jacket. Which he'd left in his car. Which had broken down and frozen shut two miles away.

He paced the length of the room from fireplace to dying grey couch, whose cushions were ripped from dogs long gone and children grown and dead. The doctor had said time was running out. But time was always running out. Some people could see the end of their rope approaching. You could go out with a jump or just let go. And Saunders was afraid that his mother had no choice but to let go.

He finally made it up the stairs and hesitated outside her door. Louise opened it slowly.

"She wants Joey." Sniffled his almost 17 year old sister. She wiped a tear from her face and smiled her brilliant smile with a new bravery, even in the darkness. "It's time to say goodbye, Chip." She motioned sadly through her fake front of joy for the life, or lack thereof lived by the strongest woman Chip had ever known. Her arm lingered on his, and then he moved through the door to say one final, "Merry Christmas Mom," and tell her, one lonely soul, goodnight and goodbye.

….

(all between * is writing)

*Dear Chris,

It's almost Christmas where I am. Eleven forty-three PM. I'm sorry to have to tell you that Mom passed away tonight at around ten O'clock. We've got the Christmas turkey in the ice box… Louise made her famous bread. But the house is empty, and I'm out of Cigarettes, and we miss you. I hope you'll come home soon so we can do what we used to. Look, kid, honesty is not my favorite subject, but for what it's worth, I miss the Chris who wore Sunday clothes on a Saturday and walked around town just so he could get eyes from the girls. Louise needs to go somewhere new, away from Cleveland. Her cough is worse, and I can't watch her ebb away like Dad. Or mom. Or just disappear like Andy or Joey. I just want you to make me a promise, my Christmas gift from you to me this year- don't take any more medals for war. War's over. Come home. Army might want a kid like you, but we need you here.

Mom's going to be buried tomorrow. Papers are signed. Undertaker is*

Chip stopped to scribble out the last three sentences. He touched the pen tip to the paper, and scrawled a lonely, *Your brother, **C. S.***

He stuffed it into a drawer and let it sit for consideration.

….

By the time he got the courage to mail the letter, their mother was buried, and the old house was sold. This was the new year; 1946.

Chip and Louise made their way into town with three suitcases and the cash from the house and everything in it that Spring, on a warm day in May.

"Do you think Dad would be very angry, Chip?" his sister coughed into her sleeve. "Selling the house, and his music, and the hunting guns?"

"I don't think." He swung his arm around her, "Look, Louise, the sun is high, the day is new, the grass is greener than you'll be on that boat, and we're headed down south to see a friend. Then off to Florida."

"You shouldn't take to optimism. It doesn't look good on you." She laughed. "I'm sure you don't know what you're saying. South is hardly a good place for lungs like mine."

"Nonsense. Have you ever seen the sun glowing on the sea?" His accent got thicker, "Beautiful thing. Makes any sickness leave."  
"And then after that?"

"After that?" He shrugged, "After that we see what tomorrow means." He frowned deeper than before, "After that we can do anything, really."

As they walked, Louise studied her brother's face. The hard lines were like cracks in stone, filled in with guilt and trouble. When he smiled they moved unnaturally, but his eyes spoke against the exhaustion only a little over twenty-five years had brought. A war had drawn the lines, life had filled them in. And how grateful she was to be the one to break them with careful and casual smiles. She swung her arm around his shoulders and watched the sun break over an endless road of tomorrows. But now it was time only for today.

 **Soooooo. Sorry it was so messy, and drop me a comment if you caught the hint for the next chapter. Fun stuff. Going to go listen to the Newsies soundtrack and clean my disaster of a house. Cheers all! And Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Holidays, and everything else I missed if I don't post till after Christmas. Thanks for the support and love- you don't know how much it means!**


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